When a document needs approval from multiple people, Hive’s Proofing & Approvals app makes it easy to steer through the process, so the document is seen by the right people in the right order. Here’s how to use Proofing & Approvals in Hive.

To get started, go to the ‘Apps’ tab on your left-hand navigation bar. This will open a whole range of workspace apps. Scroll to ‘Proofing & Approvals’ and toggle the slider to activate. If you want, you can pin the ‘Proofing & Approvals’ to your navigation bar, so you can open it from there. Please note that if you’re using the free version of Hive, you’ll need to upgrade to use the Proofing & Approvals app.

Once you’ve opened the Proofing & Approvals app, the ‘Approvals’ section will appear within an action card in your Hive projects. Here, you can collaborate on documents, select the people or teams you want to collaborate with, and set stages in the approvals process to make sure that everyone who needs to can view, edit, and sign off the document.

Uploading a document into Hive

In Hive, a file that can be approved or marked up is called a ‘proof’. You can upload a file into the Approvals section of an action card by clicking ‘Add proof’.

You can upload the following file types as a proof:

• Images (.JPEG, .TIFF, .PNG, .PDF)
• Microsoft Office files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
• Videos (.mp4)

You can upload multiple files in one go and there is no file upload limit, although your broadband may limit upload speed. By hovering over the name of the proof in the action card, you can see who uploaded the document, as well as the timestamp for when it was uploaded.

Setting up the approvals process in Hive

To approve a document or video, you need to set up an approval route, so the proof is seen by all the people who need to provide feedback. And to ensure that your proof gets to everyone in the right order, you can create different stages within the approval process. For example, if you had a company newsletter to approve, in Stage One, you might include the marketing team, in Stage Two, you might run it by legal, and in Stage Three you might send to the CEO for final approval.

To set up an approval route, click ‘Request approval’. You can then set the different stages of approval and add a title (e.g. ‘Newsletter – First Draft’) so the proofing stage is clearly labeled. Next, decide which approvers need to be involved at each stage. You add people as individuals from your internal contacts and you can also add teams of people. If you need approval from someone who is not in your Hive team, you can add their email address when prompted to enable external proofing. Please note that a proof needs to be present in the action card for you to add external users to a specific approval stage.

Then you’re all set! You can save your approval route as a template for future use, which is great for streamlining operations. And if you need to add any new approval rounds, you can use your saved template to send it to the same contacts again. Using the Proofing & Approvals function in Hive saves you time and effort by reducing the administrative work around the proofing process. Once you’ve set up your approval route, Hive streamlines the admin, seeing your file safely through the approvals process from start to finish.

How to proof documents in Hive

If you are an approver, when it’s your turn to review a proof you will see a ‘Review’ button in the action card. Click it, and you’ll now have the choice of ‘Approve’ in green or ‘Request changes’ in orange.

A ‘Review in Progress’ notice will appear next to your name so your colleagues know you’re working on the proof. To review, click on the image of the proof in the action card. There’s a tool kit at the top of the proof area with numerous editing and commenting options. Note that you can increase the size of the tool kit icons if you like. If you want to look for specific text, you can use the search icon to look for a word or phrase.

Here’s a guide to the various features (numbers matching with the image above) inside Hive’s proofing tool:

1. Click the Pane button to show a summary view with thumbnails and notes.
2. View controls allows you to control page transition, layout, and rotation.
3. Click the Pan icon to navigate within the proof.
4. The Select tool allows you to click and select annotations.
5. Change the zoom.
6. Navigate through the pages of the document.
7. View measurements for the page you are on.
8. Search for specific comments made in the proof.
9. Filter comments by position or time.

If you want to edit text or provide feedback, simply click on the area and make your comments or changes. Comments will appear in the comments panel with the name of the contributor and a timestamp. You can select multiple comments at the same time by holding the CONTROL key and clicking on the relevant comments. Then, either press DELETE to clear the comments, or drag them to move their location.

In addition, multiple users can work on the document at the same time! Just make sure you click ‘Save’ before you exit.

Finalizing the approval

When everyone in a stage has fed back and marked the document approved, the process moves automatically to the next stage. You can upload a new proof while the round is in process; the previous version will now appear in the ‘Show previous file versions’ section. You can also download the proof with or without mark-up, view side-by-side version comparisons in the same screen, and you can copy and paste elements from one version to the other if you want.

It’s that simple! Try it out and see how Proofing & Approvals in Hive can streamline your approvals process. If you have any questions, we have a useful FAQ on hand for you.

Also, check out our video to get to know the Proofing & Approvals app:

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